


Later

by grandfatherclock



Series: Half-Seconds at a Time [7]
Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-15
Updated: 2020-01-15
Packaged: 2021-02-27 15:14:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,088
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22269241
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/grandfatherclock/pseuds/grandfatherclock
Summary: Jester has a question for Caleb.
Relationships: Jester Lavorre/Caleb Widogast
Series: Half-Seconds at a Time [7]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1526909
Comments: 9
Kudos: 70





	Later

"Hey, Cayleb." She stands before him, clad in a lovely green dress that glitters when she moves and red jewels embroidered into the silken design. The cloth swishes with her feet as she takes a step towards him, and then one step closer. She smiles as she watches that flush work on his face, pink tinting pale skin like the stroke of a paint brush against an empty canvas. Jester wonders how many years she's been watching that flush, the two of them in their careful dance with each other, in their deliberate little orbit.

Too many years, she thinks, is the answer.

In the background there's music, and she can hear the distant hum of conversation, of Nott's reedy congratulations. She can hear the raised eyebrow in her voice, can hear her smile as she says, _Good luck making an honest man out of this one, Caduceus._

 _Fuck off, Nott_ , Fjord says, but his voice is good-natured. Jester sneaks a look over his shoulder, and he looks beautiful in his navy suit, his undercut sharp and grey streaking his hair and a helpless smile on his scarred lips.

Caduceus is standing beside him, watching Fjord affectionately, and Jester watches his further ornate—more ornate than _usual_ —robes pressed and perfect against his grey skin. His pink hair pools at one side, braided and jeweled. _Mama always said that_ , she thinks. _That love makes you helpless._

Caleb's blush has only deepened. "Hey," he whispers. "Jester." He breathes her name more than says it. The deep purple of his robes only accentuates the paleness of his neck, and Jester eyes it for longer than strictly necessary, making Caleb sigh into a soft laugh. Nervous. He's _nervous._

Jester is nervous too. "I was just wondering, you know." She takes a step forward, and she's in his space, she _knows_ she's in his space. She comes close hesitantly, but his face doesn't twist into discomfort, and his eyes don't shy away. They actually flick to her lips for a sublime moment, and the corner of Jester's mouth curl up, teeth sinking into her lower lip. "Thinking about it a lot, lately. Especially here."

" _Especially here_ ," Caleb muses, an eyebrow raising as he watches her expression. Jester wonders what he sees, wonders if all the glittering white lights she and Caduceus set up in the Blooming Grove like they had for the tree in the Xhorhouse make her violet eyes glow even fractionally the way they refract off Caleb's pale blue ones. "What's on your mind, Lavorre?"

Jester stills for a moment. She could back off this cliff right now, she really could. Her and Caleb's friendship is a good thing, a perfect thing, something too perfect to gamble on nearly anything—but her mind can't stop thinking about the gazes she sees in the corner of her eye. The way he never quite answered her teasing question in Felderwin of, _Are you secretly in love with me?_ The way she dances and his face is so _open_ , an expression of disbelief she caught because the Traveler whispered to her to look up at the right moment. She nearly tripped because he looked so damned _reverent_ — "What were you going to tell me later?"

She doesn't worry that he won't remember, Caleb remembers _everything_ **.** They were shopping in Rosohna, and their eyes met, and his mouth opened… 

Caleb's face looks ready to break, and he looks over the intricacies of her face—her hair framing a paler blue, her dimpled smile, the freckles dusting her face like a pretty kind of glitter. He opens his mouth, and it's this shaky exhale that pulls onto a weak smile. She's under no illusions how they must look right now so close at a table in the corner. Jester… likes the idea of someone seeing them, someone knowing she's why he's flushing and she's why he's thinking deeply about what to say, how to say it. "You were thinking about it _especially here_ ," he repeats.

"You know why," she retorts, and her voice almost becomes accusatory, her eyes half-lidded as she watches his minute movements, the twitch of his hands as he clenches and unclenches them, his furrowed eyebrows as he draws closer, as if pulled in by her own movement. Their orbit only gets closer over these years, but never quite touching, not in the way she wants.

Not in the way _he_ wants.

"I know why," he says, and then affirms, with the way his shoulders tense and he takes a deep breath. "J-Jester." He's stuttering her name, but he's _here_ , and he's watching her, swallowing for a moment as he buys time to build up his nerve. "I wanted… wanted to tell that you were wonderful." Jester raises an eyebrow, lips slowly pulling into a wider smile, and Caleb stares for a moment before biting his lower lip. "And exquisite and thoughtful." He nearly fumbles over his words. "And I was—am, still am—immensely… fond of you." His face is burning, but he reaches for her hand, and Jester grabs his. "And I want to tell you _now…_ "

"Ja?" Jester whispers, and she's on her tiptoes. Her lips are ghosting his. This… feels like a dam breaking, like the colours slowly coalescing into completeness with the paint smearing against itself, like a revelation, like a prophecy.

"That I am not-so-secretly," he mumbles, and his eyes are shining, "in love with you." There's a pause after he says it, and he blinks, this slow realization playing out on his face. He looks _amazed_ with himself, and his lips quirk up, as he gazes back to her, other hand reaching for her waist to pull her close. "Jester, I'm in—"

Jester jumps, because she is short and he is tall and difficult problems require creative solutions. Caleb nearly falls back, righting himself at the last moment, and then he's holding her tightly as they kiss, teeth clacking and tongues searching the other's mouths and _fuck_ , Jester thinks there might be tears in her eyes as she whispers against his pink lips that she loves him too, _I love you too, Cayleb_.

 _Oh, look_ , Nott says smugly, and Jester is faintly aware of eyes on them. _This wedding has made honest men out of all of us._

Jester just grins at them, and uses the hand intertwined with Caleb's own to pull him with her, pull him out of the main room.

Then she presses him against the wall and kisses him some more.


End file.
